To accurately control molten steel temperature drop caused by turnover ladle and reduce tapping temperature and energy consumption, the heat transfer computation model for ladle was built by using the software Ansys14 and adaptive mesh refinement of ParaMesh2.3. The influence of preheating time before ladle going online, cooling time, online preheating time, offline preheating time and erosion of ladle lining on the thermal storage of ladle and molten steel temperature drop was analyzed. The infrared measured data was used to verify the veracity of the model. The ladle classification table including ladle condition information coding has been built, which was based on calculated molten steel temperature compensation. The research result showed that the molten steel temperature drop varies from 32.0 K to 39.6 K influenced by the preheating time when ladle in the first thermal circulation. The molten steel temperature drop was 47 K when the cooling time was 3 hours with no online preheating. Molten steel temperature drop could be decreased by 3.1 K~6.2 K through the first online preheating for 10 min. The erosion of ladle lining had a big influence on the temperature field of ladle lining but not on the temperature drop of molten steel, and the molten steel temperature drop could not be more than 1K. The ladle classification table can be used to the tapping temperature setting and ladle selecting. The main steel grades tapping temperature in the M steel plant was decreased by 2.3~13.2 K.